Having an accident is always a stressful and difficult event. Having one in a rental van can be even worse - you can end up unsure about who to contact and worried about receiving a huge bill for damage from your hire company.

Europcar have understood this and introduced a new service for UK customers that aims to simplify and de-stress accidents and breakdowns. First Call provide a single number to contact in the event of accident or breakdown - and ensure that everything necessary, including claims paperwork, is handled quickly and efficiently.

The First Call service is already offered by National Van Rental and Europcar say that they hope it will result in more customers reporting minor accidents straight away - rather than leaving it until they return the vehicle, making claims more difficult.

The Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced that the 2p increase in road fuel duty planned for October will be postponed indefinitely. Fuel duty will remain at 50.35p per litre for the forseeable future.

Motorists have welcomed the move but commented that it is something of a drop in the ocean - with fuel prices already up 22.5% since the beginning of this year.

The Chancellor Alistair Darling, on the other hand, was keen to point out that fuel duty is actually 17% lower in ‘real terms’ - i.e. taking into account inflation - than it was in 1999.

Darling said that by postponing the increase in fuel duty the government was helping “motorists and businesses get through what is a difficult time for everyone.”

More interesting to me is the news that oil prices have started to fall a little - could they have peaked? Watch this space.

While all fuel prices have risen over the last year, none have leaped skywards with more enthusiasm than diesel prices. The average price of diesel reached 132.7 pence per litre at the end of June - a whopping 22.5% higher than at the beginning of 2008.

The reason for this is that only a certain percentage of crude oil can be refined into diesel - and in the European market, demand has grown so that pretty much all available diesel is being used. One of the reasons for this, of course, is the surge in popularity of diesel cars in recent years.

While lorry, bus and van operators have little choice but to choose diesel vehicles, it’s only over the last 3-5 years that diesel has achieved such remarkable popularity as a fuel for cars. Modern common-rail diesel engines offer strong performance and excellent fuel economy - meaning that despite a purchase price premium, many car owners have made the change.

Sentiment in the industry now seems to be suggesting that this trend might be about to reverse, however. The cost of diesel fuel is so much higher than petrol that only true high-mileage car drivers will save money by driving diesels. In addition, diesel cars typically still cost more to buy and maintain than their petrol counterparts - meaning that for many car owners, they simply don’t make financial sense anymore.

This could be good news for companies such as Audi, who have continued to develop new petrol engines offering reduced emissions and improved performance. Such engines are an obvious replacement for turbo-diesels, as are hybrids. These, however, are still more expensive than regular petrol-engined cars to buy.

A new report from the UK’s Renewable Fuels Agency, an independent body, has recommended that the adoption of biofuels be “significantly slowed” until measures are put in place to alleviate the unwanted side effects of biofuel production:

• Loss of agricultural land used for food production
• Possible increases in greenhouse gases
• Rising food commodity prices - particularly oil seeds in the UK (corn in USA, I believe)

The report’s most striking conclusion - and one that chimes with many environmental and poverty organisations’ findings - is that:

…there is a future for a sustainable biofuels industry but that feedstock production must avoid agricultural land that would otherwise be used for food production.

The report also concludes that there “sufficient land for food, feed and biofuels” but that biofuel production must target “idle and marginal land” and the use of “wastes and residue”. It notes that current [UK] policies are likely to lead to an increase in carbon emissions:

“…the balance of evidence shows a significant risk that current policies will lead to net greenhouse gas emissions”

Biofuels Contribute to Rising Food Prices

Just like the recent World Bank report, the RFA believes that biofuels are contributing to rising food prices but concludes that the net effects of biofuel production on food prices might stabilise and moderate over time.

Needless to say, the report concludes that those worst affected by the consequences of increased biofuel production are the poorest members of society - both in the UK and in countries of biofuel production.

A Successful Biofuel Industry Is Possible - But Must Be Regulated

The reports ultimate conclusion is that a sustainable, environmentally beneficial and responsible biofuel industry is possible - but that much greater regulation is required for this to be achieved.

It suggests that the current Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO) policy in the UK should be amended so that biofuel content in road transport fuel is increased by no more than 0.5% per year from its current 2.5% level. This would leave it at a maximum of 5% by 2013/14 - against the current target of 5% by 2010.

The report also puts forward a suggested framework of regulation that would help shape the industry into an effective and sustainable force for emission reduction and ends by suggesting that short-term financial assistance should be provided to those worst affected by rising food prices, since these are at least partially the result of western governments’ ill-considered biofuel policies.

Note: It’s worth emphasising that the kind of biofuels causing the problems alluded to above are those produced from large-scale farming of oil seed (in the UK) and corn (for example) in the USA. Biofuel production from waste oil and other by-products is generally considered to make a positive contribution to greenhouse gas emission reduction and most independent experts agree that it should be fostered and encouraged.

Back in April, I wrote about a new partnership that was promising to deliver workable, cost-effective hydrogen filling stations in the not-too-distant future. ITM Power’s goal is to develop a commercially-viable hydrogen filling station that actually generates its own hydrogen from water and electricity - not relying on deliveries by tanker lorries.

It seems that progress has already been made towards that goal. ITM Power are currently running a Ford Focus as a hydrogen demonstration vehicle for their filling station design. At present it only has a range (using one charge of hydrogen fuel) of 25 miles, but this can be increased to 100 miles by storing the hydrogen under greater pressure. The vehicle is bi-fuel and can be switched back to petrol whenever necessary.

Next month will see Roush Technologies, the company handling the vehicle engineering side of this project, start using a hydrogen-fuelled Ford Transit to demonstrate the capabilities of the system. The Transit, which features a supercharged 2.3 litre [petrol] engine, will be used to promote the benefits of hydrogen fuel to businesses and other van operators.

The system will be targeted at vans on short delivery runs in urban areas where returning to base to refuel is not an issue and where reduced emissions could well result in tax and operating cost reductions for the van operators.

ITM Power have managed to reduce the cost of the hydrogen fuelling stations by replacing the platinum membrane normally required with a specially-developed polymer. This has a cost of just 1% of the traditional design and is helping bring commercially-viable hydrogen fuel stations closer to reality.

ITM expect to go into volume production of hydrogen filling stations in the next couple of years and expect production units to cost a few thousand pounds. That seems cheap to me - although they will use a sizable amount of electricity, it is easy to imagine attractive cost savings in comparison to diesel.

For more details, see these stories in Logistics Manager and Fleet News.

It’s no secret that the Mercedes Sprinter is one of the most popular vans in Europe with both drivers and operators. This week it confirmed that reputation with the award of the coveted Motor Transport Fleet Van of the Year award for 2008.

It’s the second consecutive year that the Sprinter has won the award, highlighting just how strong a grip Mercedes has on the large panel van sector. The Motor Transport judges were impressed not only by the vehicle but by the strong support available from the Mercedes-Benz dealer network and by market-leading innovations such as Eco Start, which saves fuel by automatically switching the engine off during idling without jeopardising safety or reliability.

The award was presented at the recent Motor Transport Awards in London and marked the fourth time in six years that the Sprinter has won the Fleet Van of the Year Award!

Northway Vehicle Sales is an independent company offering short and long term van hire and commercial  vehicle sales from its base in Baildon, just to the north of Shipley, West Yorkshire.

The company was founded in October 2003 by two experienced commercial vehicle industry professionals and offers a comprehensive range of services. Vans are available for short and long-term hire and Northway can also arrange new vehicle leasing. The company keeps a wide range of used commercial vehicles in stock - they specialise in vehicles under five years of age with service history.

If you’d like to learn more about van hire or sales from Northway Vehicle Sales, visit their website at www.northwayvehiclesales.co.uk or call or email them direct on 01274 588880 / northwayvehicles@msn.com.

Baildon is a small village just to the north of Shipley, which itself is just to the north of Bradford, West Yorkshire.

The rush to use food crops to make biofuels has caused 75% of the rise in food prices seen between 2002 and Febuary 2008, according to a new, unpublished World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.

In comparison, the report found that increased energy and fertiliser costs have only been responsible for 15% of food price increases across the same period.

This is a subject I have been concerned about for some time - it’s good to see authoritative, objective support for this coming from such a respected source.

Hopefully both EU and US politicians might start to think a little more carefully about their biofuel policies now - with about half of EU-produced vegetable oil and a third of US corn being used to make biofuels, their incentives have unwittingly distorted global food markets.

An untangling of this mess is urgently needed.

You can read the full report on the Guardian’s website.

Rent A Van, Plant A Tree

Green Motion, one of the leading green van hire companies in the UK, has recently announced a partnership with Trees4Good, a carbon-offsetting organisation.

Trees4Good operate tree-planting campaigns in Borneo and Brazil and their partnership with Green Motion will mean that a tree is planted for every customer. The cost of this will be fully-absorbed by Green Motion; unlike some other hire companies, they will not levy an additional charge for this carbon offsetting service.

Green Motion claim that this partnership will enable them to become the world’s first carbon-neutral car and van rental company, as the carbon benefits for each tree planted will more than offset the carbon emissions of each vehicle Green Motion operates during its lifetime with the company.

New Hybrid Mercedes Sprinter Gets Early Test Drive

I’ve been touting hybrids as a way forwards (in preference to biofuels) for some time now and it is encouraging to see how many hybrid vehicles are starting to come to market - or at least get close.

The van market isn’t being left behind and Mercedes are now in the advanced stages of testing and developing a hybrid Sprinter van. Commercial Motor managed to get a test drive of a pre-production model in Germany this week and found it to be a well-developed and competent van.

You can read their first impressions review here.

I had an email the other day from a visitor to this site who was puzzled as to why the National and Europcar van hire branches in the location she’d chosen (Sheffield) had the same addresses.

As this is a common question, I thought I would answer it here as well as emailing her back.

Over the last few years, there has been a lot of consolidation within the global car rental industry. One of the changes that has taken place is that Europcar UK Group own the National brand in the UK.

What this means is that the two companies have decided to combine their rental fleets and some of their branches. The result is a combined van fleet of 6000 vehicles and 250 locations across the UK - and 60,000 cars in the UK. In some locations, branches have been combined for efficiency and both companies now list branch offices with the same address.

Sheffield is just one example of this. A few others are Stoke on Trent, Aberdeen and Brighton - but there are many more.

Although the branches are the same, each company still operates its own pricing structure and has slightly different rental policies. This means it is always worth getting a quote from both Europcar and National - don’t assume they will be the same price, as they probably won’t be!